Here's how to Fix Bad Team Building Activities

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why traditional team building has such a bad reputation
• The five biggest reasons team building fails
• What research says about effective team-building elements
• How to plan team-building activities that actually work

Resources

Team Building Tops the List of Most Disliked Workplace Social Activities

Please Don't Make Me Go! Team-Building is Not for Everyone, Says Acas

Many Workers Do Not Like Team-Building Activities – Report

Team-Building Activities Disliked by a Third of Workers, Survey Shows

Build a Great Team on a Relationship-Based Culture, Not the Myth of Family

5 Questions for Team Building - Leadership Vision Consulting

17 Smart Ways For Managers To Foster Two-Way Relationships With Team Members

Relationship-Based Leadership: Be More Than a Boss

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

11 Reasons Millennials and Gen Z Dislike Team Building Activities

Chapters

• 0:26 The Bad Reputation of Team Building
• 4:50 Why Team Building Gets a Bad Rap
• 7:30 What Actually Works in Team Building
• 12:49 Planning Effective Team Building Activities
• 17:43 Moving Beyond Trust Falls

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Several years ago I set up a Google Alert for the phrase team building activities. A couple times a week I get an email filled with articles, blog posts and headlines about the latest trends in team building. Now, normally I just kind of skim through them and look for anything interesting to maybe share in social media or for a possible podcast topic. But recently something caught my attention. Instead of the normal articles about creative or effective team building ideas, the Google Alert seemed to be filled with articles about how bad team building is. Some headlines stood out there's one that said many workers do not like team building activities, finds report. Another one said team building tops the list of most disliked workplace social activities. And my favorite one just said team building sucks, so you should stop doing it. Yikes, clearly the algorithm or whatever the alert system had was having a bad day or something. There's some disgruntled employees out there, I guess. But anyway, I skimmed the articles and they laid out all the reasons that you can probably guess why people dislike team building. You can maybe add your own reason to this list, but there are things like because it's too awkward, it feels forced and it often fails to achieve any sort of meaningful change and, honestly, for most of these sorts of things at least, the way that they were being done in these articles, they were not wrong. The way that they were being done in these articles, they were not wrong.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and this is the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode today, or other resources as well, to help you create mentally engaged and emotionally healthy leaders, please click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. On this episode, we're going to be talking about team building. You know trust falls awkward. Icebreakers, escape rooms, maybe even some karaoke. You know all the things that are supposed to bring us closer together. Well, not those things specifically, but at Leadership Vision, we really pride ourselves on doing team building differently, in a way that's actually meaningful, that's purposeful, that's relationship-based and even practical.

Speaker 1: 2:12

So today on the podcast, I want to share just a little bit of the research that I found from digging into those three articles and a bunch of other ones, and talk a little bit about why traditional team building has such a bad reputation, what elements need to be present for effective team building and then how to actually plan a team building event. We'll call this the leadership vision way. That sort of sidesteps these common pitfalls and can be helpful for you and your team. If you've ever rolled your eyes at the words team building or team building exercise, this episode is for you. By the end of it, you're going to know how to design team building that not only doesn't suck, but maybe even makes work better. All right, let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So why does team building have such a bad reputation? Well, too often these team building events feel forced, irrelevant or even cringey. We were the speakers at an event once where they made everyone do some kind of like karaoke thing, or maybe as an improv, I don't know. It was not good at all, but we do know that teamwork is critical, right? Obviously it's important.

Speaker 1: 3:21

86% of employees say that poor communication leads to poor collaboration, which is the reason for some of the biggest failures at work. So where's the disconnect? Why does something so important often get such a bad rap? Well, here's a few ideas. Here's a few of these myths. Number one people think it's a waste of time. Most employees think that we have real work to do, so why are we wasting our time doing this thing and, to be fair, bad team building does feel pointless. Think about like the silly games or the awkward icebreakers If they don't connect to real work, they're just distractions. But good team building builds relationships that improve collaboration and productivity. In fact, 63% of leaders have observed better communication after effective team building. So the issue isn't necessarily team building itself, but it's just how it's done. The second reason is that most team building doesn't impact real work. Some leaders think that team building is just this feel good, fluffy stuff, the soft skills, whatever you want to call it. But again, research proves otherwise. Departments with strong team bonds see 20 to 25% higher productivity and 30% greater profitability. There's actually a whole bunch of other research on this that I'll provide in the show notes if you really want to get into the weeds. So the key here is trying team building that actually, you know, tackle some kind of work challenge. A trust fall is not going to improve trust, but maybe a brainstorming session on why our team is having trust issues that just might All right.

Speaker 1: 4:54

The third thing is because a lot of team building is awkward and embarrassing. Remember that karaoke example, one of the biggest complaints that we've heard from clients and supported in the research is that team building is just forced vulnerability. I don't know many people that want to do improv skits or sing karaoke, go rock climbing, do bowling or share personal stories in a circle. Team building should respect different personalities. Instead of making introverts uncomfortable, offer activities that let everyone engage in different ways. Small group discussions, role-based problem solving or structured collaboration exercises are kind of some ways to do that. That said, team building kind of is inherently about getting people out of their comfort zones in some way. It is a little awkward and embarrassing, but it shouldn't feel forced or mandatory. More on that later.

Speaker 1: 5:44

The fourth reason why team building has a bad rap and this is perhaps more for the people planning it is because it's expensive and time-consuming. Many people assume that team building requires these big off-sites or elaborate retreats, but that's not the case. Small, consistent interactions, even like a weekly 10-minute check-in, can build stronger teams over time, maybe even more so than a one-off retreat at some kind of retreat center or a big spa or whatever it is. And yes, you can certainly do those big, expensive and time-consuming things, but you don't have to. There's also a mentality with some of the leaders that we've talked to that, if you're not taking people on those big retreats, like what's the point, like it's just not worth it to put in just a little minute here or a little minute there. I totally disagree, we disagree. Half-day investments, you know, a couple times a year, that's not only affordable but it's very doable and can be highly effective.

Speaker 1: 6:39

All right, the fifth and final thing is that people think that team building will fix everything and then are disappointed when it doesn't. I mean, we've worked with so many clients over the years who think that just because they've invested in team building, now their team is built. Well, that's not the case. Obviously, some teams use team building as a quick fix for deeper problems, you know, like low trust, poor leadership, lack of clarity. But team building isn't a cure-all. It's just one piece of the puzzle and works best when paired with strong leadership and clear communication over time. It's like that person who stops doing their physical therapy after just like a couple days because they think it's not working. Well, that's not going to fix your underlying problem. It's about consistently doing those things, day after day, week after week, month after month, until you achieve the results that you want. All right, so what actually works.

Speaker 1: 7:30

What does the science say? If traditional team building is done so bad, what does effective team building look like? Well, in my little internet research here, I didn't necessarily find one particular activity that you could or should do that would be like particularly effective, like do this, not that. But what I did find is that there is some science that says that whatever you end up doing, whatever activity you consider team building yes, even a trust fall you should include some degree of the following five things, and there's probably more. I would love to hear your feedback on it as well.

Speaker 1: 8:06

So the first thing is create psychological safety, or just safety in general. This is such a buzzy thing right now, thanks in no small part to Google's project Aristotle, who found that the number one predictor of high performing teams is psychological safety, which is just simply the ability to speak up without fear. So this is probably more of a team culture thing than like a specific to team building. But if you want to create the type of team where psychological safety is present, where people can speak up, where they can share what's on their mind, you can start by making sure that whatever team building activity you do has some degree of this. This could be as simple as making sure that everyone has a voice, make sure that there are multiple avenues for people to share feedback and to give feedback and to receive feedback. There's this thing I came across called wins and wisdom check-in, where people just share a recent success and a lesson learned, and this can build trust without forcing some of that deep vulnerability that people are afraid of, and it also just takes a couple of minutes. At my home with the kids every night, we do something called high-low buffalo the same kind of idea what's something that went well today, not so well, and then the buffalo is just a random thing. And what's interesting and we've done a version of this with teams is that sometimes that can build this degree of safety and trust, because people are getting just a little window into someone's maybe personal life.

Speaker 1: 9:34

The second thing here is to make it relevant to work. I mentioned this earlier, but team building really works best when it's tied to some kind of real team challenge. Instead of going to an escape room, try maybe structured problem-solving exercise that reflect actual work dynamics structured problem-solving exercise that reflect actual work dynamics. Or if you are going to an escape room, how do you include those elements of work dynamics into that experience. In Leadership Vision we've done all kinds of team-building activities that, at least on the surface, or at least on paper, they don't appear to have any real connection to the workplace. But at the hands of some gifted facilitators like oh, I don't know Dr Linda and Brian Schubring, everything can connect back to work and everything can be relevant. It's kind of like in the Karate Kid. When Mr Miyagi was making Daniel wax and wash his car, he didn't realize that he was actually learning bigger lessons there. You could take your team to a cooking school and like prepare a meal together, and then you can debrief that experience using examples of what happened during that thing and apply it to a current office project or another internal situation.

Speaker 1: 10:42

The third thing here I found was to allow different ways to participate. So not everyone thrives in these high energy activities. So mix it up. Maybe you do some hands-on challenges for problem solvers, maybe you have some casual social bonding for more relationship-minded folks and maybe some discussion-based activities for getting some deeper insights. We used to do this full day thing called Vision Trek, which it was kind of like an amazing race thing that a team would do like in their local city or local park and you'd kind of look for clues and solve puzzles and do all this stuff. And we had many different ways for people to interact. So by the end of the day, by the end of that experience, everyone was able to participate, everyone was able to kind of shine or step forward, step onto the proverbial stage, if you will, and it really helps people to get to know them. It made them feel comfortable but also gave us insight into their personality and their strengths.

Speaker 1: 11:41

The fourth thing to include is to prioritize small, consistent efforts. So, going back to an earlier comment, you don't need a big retreat to call it effective team building, but rather just kind of recognize the small interactions on a regular basis. Those can make a big impact. This can be as simple as something that a company that we worked with. They did these 10 minute coffee chats and they just kind of assigned random people, had like a couple of questions and they just chatted about it. This just broke down silos and improved collaboration.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Naturally there's another client that we have who they do this quarterly 90 minute team session that incorporates all the elements I mentioned above, but in very kind of small, easily digestible format, a little bit longer than a normal meeting. That doesn't get in the way of real work. We really believe that there's kind of a few different. You know, a big retreat is great, a two minute check-in is great, it's all team building. It's just kind of how we think about it, right? So now let's get into this third section here about how do you plan team building that actually works. You know, how do you structure a chat, how do you structure a retreat? Well, in addition to those four things, I've got five more things for you, and if you've been listening to our podcast for any length of time, this might all be review for you, but sometimes I think that we just need to be reminded of things that we already know, to kind of bring it back to top of mind and and give us a little refresher so as to make it seem new, okay.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So the first one is to set a clear goal and have a clear strategy. Ask yourself or your team leaders, why are we doing this? If your goal is to improve communication, do an activity that requires problem solving together, not just some random game, and hope communication happens Great team building is intentional, it aligns with organizational goals, it connects long-term priorities and happens over time, not just in isolated events. Brian always says that team building or team development isn't a strategy. It's part of a larger strategy. So when you're planning your next team building development, ask yourself where does team development, where does team building, fit into our overall strategy of what we're trying to do? Make sure your efforts are part of the big picture.

Speaker 1: 13:59

The second thing is to make it voluntary or offer choices. There's some debate about this, but people feel disengaged when they feel that they're forced into doing something. Instead, let them choose roles or participation styles. Some might lead, others might observe, others may dip in and out. You'll have to experiment with what works for you best. In your context. You can't really do a team building and only half of the team shows up, but you also can't force everybody to go in to do something and hope for the best. This is a tricky one. I think this has to do with how you've set it up beforehand. Don't spring it on people either.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Okay, the third one which I mentioned earlier, but tie it to real work, even fun activities you should connect back to collaboration, trust, communication. What are the themes that you're trying to improve in your office culture, in whatever activity you end up doing, even these lame trust falls that I keep mentioning ask your team what did we learn? How can we apply this? To work as the team leader, you may need to apply some additional learning opportunities throughout the day. Maybe you give your team some additional challenges, like if you're going to pick out bowling shoes or do trust falls, I'll blindfold it. I don't know, those aren't the best examples, but you get the idea.

Speaker 1: 15:13

In our experience, nearly any seemingly lame activity can be tied back to real work and real examples, if you're observant and if you're paying attention. We were doing one of those amazing race things once and they were like putting this puzzle together. And there's this one individual who had just kind of been grumpy. Throughout the whole day. They're constantly pointing out like why this won't work, why this isn't going well, waste of time, whatever, and at one point when they're doing this puzzle, someone said hey, this is what you always do, like in the office. You're always telling us what doesn't work and it kind of forces us to maybe pivot or look at things a different way. So it kind of was a great aha moment for this team to say, oh, he's not just a grumpy guy, he's not just being mean, he's actually just trying to help us avoid doing things wrong. So this all can lead to just great discussions about like who we are in different contexts and we're the same, whatever, all right.

Speaker 1: 16:10

The fourth one keep it inclusive. Consider different personalities, abilities, preferences. Avoid activities that exclude people you know. Think about doing or not doing rather very physical things, or there's a lot of like social, like happy hour type things, and not everybody is into that. So how do you really keep it inclusive enough where everyone can participate? This is something that you should be thinking about anyway. But if your goal is to help the team create a greater sense of cohesion, what do you need to do so that you can get to know people? Maybe in a less worky or less intense context, all right. So the last one, maybe the most important, I'm not sure but follow up and make it ongoing.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Again, I've said this a couple of times. I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot here, but team building isn't a one-time fix. It should be part of your larger team culture. Regular check-ins, shout-outs, quick problem-solving challenges, off-sites, half-day things, two-hour things all of that keeps those connections strong and ultimately help you build stronger team culture. That single off-site activity is not really going to transform your team culture. Real team building happens consistently over time, not just once a year. So build in some ongoing opportunities for connection, whatever that looks like structured discussions, shared experiences, regular check-ins just make it be a part of your team. All right, so just to kind of review, team building isn't inherently bad. Bad team building is bad I think we can all agree on that. But when it's done right, it can strengthen trust, it can build communication, it can help improve in collaboration, it can reduce conflict and ultimately build engagement and help your team thrive.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Now, if you're a leader, here's your challenge. Try to do just one meaningful team building activity in the next month. Keep it simple. Maybe a discussion-based exercise, a structured problem-solving challenge, or even just a social gathering with a purpose. The best teams don't just work together, they actually grow together. So let's retire the trust falls and embrace team building that actually builds teams up. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture, for more resources, about anything you heard in this episode or anything else to help your team grow together. You can check the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom, and if you found value from this episode, we would appreciate a review on Spotify or iTunes, or even just share it with someone that you think could get something out of it. My name is Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.